Category Archives: Ideas

Well, it’s been a fair while since I’ve posted here, or in fact on any of my multiple blogs. To paraphrase Kastigir in Highlander, time did indeed catch me. However, it’s letting go a little bit, and allowing me a little bit of thinking time so here are the current questions racing through the synapses.

Challenge X continues to adapt, mainly following on from pupils’ ideas and suggestions. Most recently it seemed that pupils weren’t looking beyond the first suggestion available to them so we’ve created a page to collate all of the websites we’re suggesting.

Today I introduced a class to this new page and particularly to TED talks, one of which caught their eye: the invention of a shark-deterrent wetsuit by Hamish Jolly.

That caused an inundation of shark defence suggestions during which I suggested punching the shark on the nose (I know I read it somewhere). My puny efforts were mocked – how on Earth could you punch a shark? – when I remembered that Brian Blessed had punched a polar bear in his tent. So I told them that too.

Isn’t it lovely to hear children’s laughter? Hmm, time to get some work done methinks, so pupils are asked to check their log sheets, complete their last task and select another. Remember the purpose of this period was to expand their ideas? Congratulations, Jen, you’ve now got half the class researching sharks and most of the rest researching polar bears.

There are still one or two individuals. One girl called Natalie is looking for a short reading connected to her name. After drawing a blank on connected author (Natalie Babbit – Tuck Everlasting – is missing), I suggest a Christmas connection (since Natalie comes from Latin natale domini. She selects a book, reads for a while, then comes over,

Miss, did you know Christmas is Christ’s Mass? I can’t believe I didn’t see that before! Wow! That’s amazing!

See, finding things out for yourself is still one of the best feelings in the world 🙂

Meanwhile the shark hunters are getting on swimmingly (sorry) and want to know about sharks around the coast of the UK. So we look up basking sharks, and discover their size, their feeding habits and where they hang out. Pupils were keen to share locations they’ve swum on holiday, including the Black Sea, California and Greece. Are there sharks? Are they going to die? Will sharks attack beaches?

As head know-it-all, I am naturally assumed to have this information at my fingertips (!) but even though the point is to get them researching, I do suggest that while it’s rare, I have seen footage of sharks close to beaches and that maybe if a shark was hungry enough, it might not be able to resist a meal just waiting on the shore.

At this, one pupil drops her book, turns pale and asks in horror,

Miss, are we MEAT?

Now you don’t want to get into a conversation about cannibalism, but to be honest there aren’t many answers to that question.

At this point, the other wildlife squad appear to check ‘the name of that guy that attacked a polar bear’. They don’t believe me – how would he get a polar bear in his tent? – and want to confirm it for themselves, which is fabulous. So we find a biography of Brian Blessed, and I draw their attention to some of his adventures and they’re hooked. As they leave the Library, I can hear them quoting him.

Discoveries of all sorts, information checking and a new hero. One hour in the Library. Mission accomplished 🙂

We’ve been told about a potential merger with another school that I’m officially not allowed to comment on, but which has been on the minds of everyone involved since the news broke.

However, life goes on, work goes on.

At lunchtime, the PT English and I were invited to listen to and provide feedback for two pupils who were entering a public speaking competition on the topic of education. One spoke about how education should help pupils discover and follow their hidden talents, the other about being inspired and the role of teachers. They were both delivered with passion and eloquence, they were well argued, thought provoking, and not especially positive about the current form of education they are undergoing.

But more than anything else, it was a boost of energy back into two tired educators with a lot on their minds, and a reminder of why they chose to work in a school in the first place.

The Library is located almost at the end of a corridor with just one room beyond. This room is used for meetings, interviews and as an extra space when one is required. People tend to forget that the Library is right next door, perhaps because the Library entrance isn’t immediately adjacent.

Yesterday a harassed colleague rushed in to tell me that her class had been given permission to practice singing in the room that period. She was obviously concerned that this would impact on the peace and tranquility of the Library; it actually gave us the chance to enforce peace and tranquility for a change by telling the class that their voices would be picked up by the microphones 😈

This morning, I discovered that interviews were taking place in the room. Ideally I’d have just cancelled every class – the fewer distractions the better for interviewees – but that wasn’t possible. So 2nd year English working on Challenge X were encouraged to only use computers if absolutely necessary, the Tutor class registering for the Careers software were warned to remain in absolute silence while they worked, and the 1st year Reading Trailers remained in class and came along to swap their books in wee groups.

The only difficulty came with IDL. This was their last period and the intention had been to complete and print off all of their work. On a rather noisy colour printer. Right through the wall from where the interviews were happening. Er, no.

Alternative plan needed sharpish. Something to keep them away from the printer. Something to keep them away from the computers altogether. And that’s when I suddenly found myself saying to the class,

since we can’t print off today, we’d like you to work together to create a board game to tour around Lanarkshire using the resarch you’ve already gathered.

And the class, bless them, didn’t even blink at the change of plan, but rapidly got their paper and pens sorted and got to work. Ten minutes later, as we surveyed the happily blethering tables, adapting their work, checking leaflets for additional Lanarkshire locations, I turned to the teacher and muttered,

Don’t hate me, but this is much more fun than our original plan. I think we should swap to this for all the other classes too.

to which she fortunately replied,

Yes, I think so too!

They say necessity is the mother of invention. You never know what set of circumstances will cause your brain to provide a better solution to an existing challenge. I suppose the trick is being open to the opportunity.

I have the joy of working with a fabulous English Department. Together we have ensured that pupils have a variety of interesting investigations, are encouraged to read and to continue to gain confidence in finding, selecting and using information. And as often as possible, we make sure that pupils have the chance to follow their own interests. It can be challenging for yours truly, but soooo satisfying when you manage to provide resources for a whole class.

This term is a busy one for 2nd year and we didn’t want to squeeze in even more work for pupils and staff; on the other hand it’s important that Library visits continue, that research and reading continues, so we’ve decided to initiate Challenge X across the whole of S2.

Having already run a pilot last year, we decided to make some changes, for example, each class are coming once a fortnight so personal challenges have to be completed mostly at home between each visit. We also ask pupils to identify and read a book that has some sort of connection to their personal challenge – vague but imaginative connections are perfectly fine :-).

The first visits were all about introducing the idea but now we’re onto the second week and things are getting interesting. Classes are recognising this as a chance to follow their own interests, and natural curiosity is exploding all over the place. Some are taking on ideas from the original blog: learning to introduce themselves in British Sign Language, figuring out how to use Hero Machine, exploring countries, creating posters, leaflets and presentations. But what I love are the quirky ideas, pupils stretching their creative muscles rather than sticking with what us old guys come up with. So many new ideas in fact, that we’re adding to the original.

One pupil was hunting through world records and was tickled by the greatest number of bounces on a space hopper. For her Weird and Wonderful section she wanted to create her own hopper challenge, and she worked on a plan and rules for the event for the remainder of the period. I thought it was a wonderful idea; from the gleam in her eye, she did too. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a space hopper handy, but it turned out that the English teacher had one under her desk – my reputation for being able to supply anything is now in tatters.

Different class, and another group of pupils is working on the Food Challenge. One of them told me that she wanted to make a model so we passed ideas back and forth until she told me that her uncle was a butcher and was forever telling her about which bits of which animal was on her plate. She’s now creating a model showing which bits of sheep go into a haggis 🙂 Lovely!

Others have the beginnings of an idea and just need a gentle wee shove to make something more compelling out of it. Two boys joked that they should eat large burgers for their Food Challenge. They were obviously expecting a negative reaction; instead I suggested they analysed the ingredients, and figured out whether it was good or bad for their bodies.

Really?

Yup, so long as I don’t have to pay for the burgers.

So one is creating an informative poster on the dietary impact and the other a pseudo-advert using the plain truth from his information.

There are so many benefits to this wee programme: learning how to develop and follow through ideas, practising lateral thinking, identifying and expanding on personal interests and existing knowledge, exploring the Library, experimenting with new software, working together, researching, and creating all kinds of excitement while learning.

And of course, more pupils are reading, and more pupils are being enthusiastic about what they’re reading. So far, so good. We’ll keep working on the rest.

An sln member drew attention to an article in the Summer edition of Independent School magazine called The new school library. The main gist of the article is that the internet is changing the nature of school libraries. It’s a point of view that I respectfully disagree with; to me, the last twenty years of my life as a school librarian has always been about creating

a mixed-use space for research, study, collaboration, global connection, and more

although modern technology has certainly made the attempt a lot easier 🙂

But that’s nit-picking. I think the article provides an excellent overview of the role of a school library in the 21st century and the choices its staff have to make.

At the end of the article was a section entitled

Technology and the Library: What’s Hot, and What’s Not?

which listed twelve criteria for how a school library should be organised in the present, including technology, collaboration, equipment, information literacy and attitudes of librarian, teaching staff and management.

So how hot is my library using these criteria? (Lisa Simpson needing graded – that’s me). Well, I make it sunny with scattered showers. Some issues are not under the school’s control (staffing and network technology are decided at council level) and while most of the other criteria are in place, they would benefit from expansion.

Their list makes an interesting comparison with the infographic created by Robert Gordon University / SLIC regarding the impact of school libraries on learning.

Impact of School Libraries (SLIC, 2013)

The list from Independent School magazine is a fairly decent recipe for the perfect school library, but it’s interesting that it assumes a professionally qualified, well experienced, knowledgeable specialist librarian, (mentioned throughout the article).

An interesting day spent on Access-IT training (Access-IT is the library management system used in our authority, and personally, I think it’s very good). These sessions take place every couple of years, with folks coming over from New Zealand to train, gather feedback and collect ideas for new features.

This time, we spent a lot of time discussing digital resources and how to supply them to our users. All public organisations will be faced with the dichotomy between security levels demanded by the government and providing access to users, and libraries are often at the sharp edge, with the desire to supply e-books and other online material competing with the legal requirements for proper filtering.

It’s also a great opportunity to share ideas with colleagues, especially how the software is used, for example, suggestions for what appears on the catalogue front pages, uses for the visual search, or even the choice of phrasing to assist borrowers. Not forgetting recommending resources, identifying problems and proposing solutions.

Not surprisingly, I left with a task list a page long, and gifted the Access-IT folks an equally long list of ideas to make managing the library easier.

This world is currently growing on a paper in a school library. It’s a work in progress but I love all the little details we’ve added.

Amazing how the colour brings it to life, although every time we had to select a colour we all froze. Quite appropriate in an arctic-like landscape.

A world in progress from And Now This by J L Macfadyen

Our world is surrounded by mountains, although they’re out of shot. The purply bit is frozen loch. The orange fish/rockets are actually houses on stilts – the stilts are permanent, but the top will lift off. There’s a small hill covered in Pi-like shapes centre-left; those are platforms for the top half of the houses in times of flood. Top left you can just make out the shapes of trees – upside down naturally as the majority of the moisture comes from above rather than the frozen ground. The squiggles in the loch represent the sacred places of our settlement: the steam arising from an underground hot spring, and its associated ‘church’. The orange is a rice field. Yes, I know it’s frozen but there are channels bringing warmer water to this more marshy area, and besides it’s ‘grow-in-a-frozen-landscape-rice’. Obviously!

Tonight we added a waterfall which has a cave behind it. It might not be original, but some cliches exist because they’re just magical ideas.

Now we have to decide how our three existing stories fit together into one narrative, and begin to develop our characters. And by that time we might have functioning computers again and we can purchase the software!

The Science Department have often asked their 1st year classes to research an element of the Periodic Table. Last year was the first time any of them had used the Library for the investigation (reason being that their own computer suite was unavailable, so they decided to slum it).

Naturally I was delighted, and brought out a load of relevant materials. The teacher in question was thrilled: where had all this stuff come from? I just grinned: Secret Powers, don’t you know! Every other class had already finished that particular unit, so further developments had to wait for this year.

This week, one lovely teacher replied to my invitation and we had a blether. She explained her concerns, about her class and their lack of researching and presentation abilities, and I suggested ways around the diffculties, like using a mind-map to remind them of what they’ve to find and to keep their notes, linking to specific websites and using the encyclopaedias. I demonstrated that the Library catalogue was already keyworded extensively, so many elements would be traceable there (sorry, can’t resist bad puns). The teacher had collected some periodic tables from a conference which listed symbols, atomic numbers, boiling points and melting points, so I suggested we use them first to remind the class how to lay out information on a mind-map.

*whispers* In return I got lovely comments about how she was going to live in the Library from now on because the Library made everything so much better than a teacher could, but that would be showing off so I won’t mention it 😀

A lot of pupils find it difficult to start any kind of notes, so the teacher and I asked questions about what the class thought should be included in this investigation, and drew a mind-map on the Smartboard, adding headings as we talked through it, encouraging the class to copy it as we went along, and leaving space for them to ‘fill-in-the-blanks’. But this is a fill-in-the-blanks exercise with added bonus features: the information is better organised, easier to write up into another format and there’s still plenty of room for individual interest and space to expand.

At least that’s the plan.

The organisation is certainly better, and they’re finding the information to complete the branches of the maps, but that’s all they’re doing. They’re hunting purely for that information which fills the gaps and ignoring everything around it; useful information is being left out, because they want to find just one thing at a time instead of arranging material as they find it.

We want them to be hunter-gatherers, identifying and picking information as they discover it, so how do we go about that? And more to the point, how do we encourage that behaviour while also encouraging the careful arrangement of information and maintain their interest???

Good day today. Very busy but accomplished a lot which always feels good.

Period 1 the Library hosted a 1st year Science class investigating elements of the Periodic Table (more about them later), then gave one of the English classes a turn at some Kids Lit Quiz questions.

At Tutor Time, I’m wandering round 3rd year classes, encouraging our Micro Tyco groups to leave some information about their enterprises on the blog, and I discover some of disheartened faces. Their problem: they don’t know what to do for Micro Tyco. We have a blether about what’s already being done, what they fancy doing, and what’s actually feasible. Time ticks away while our brains lie exposed on the rack, and its getting closer to interval. Closer to my cup of tea … tea … tea! Inspiration strikes.

You know what’s wonderful? I ask them, having a cup of tea waiting for you at interval time. Why don’t you ask if any department would be willing to pay you to get their tea ready for them? And off they head on some market researching. Unfortunately, our departments all take their breaks in their own department bases, so they’ll have a limited market unless they split up, but “50p for a cup of tea” does hit a thirsty nerve 🙂

Before lunch is a free period, so I’m preparing for forthcoming meetings with RCAHMS and Catalyst, training days with Access-IT, and trying to keep up with the ever encroaching e-mail.

At lunchtime, the Photo Club are working on their modules while more hopefuls come and take part in the KLQ trials, before 2nd year come piling in to begin transferring their written work onto the blog. Insisting on hand-drawn mind-maps to collect and arrange information has had a definite impact and there’s no plagiarism visible at all. It’s also been quicker to write since the information has already been sorted into paragraphs, and before they begin typing, I ask them to read and comment or one or two existing blog articles (which is also a great way for them to think about their own layout without me having to talk at them even more 🙂 )

No class last period, so its more e-mail, preparing materials for new lessons, and taking care of the comments already left on the blog – all positive thankfully.

And as usual, although I put the kettle on when the bell goes, I never get round to that second cup of tea. If only someone was around to make it for me …

Seems obvious yes? If you’re interested, you’re more engaged. If you’re more engaged, you’re likely to learn more. This report suggests it’s more complicated than that, and that interest can actually help make learning more positive and more efficient, with deeper understanding and better connections to previous knowledge. There’s even evidence to indicate that learning difficulties can be overcome when the learner is engrossed.

The obvious example that springs to mind is young children obsessed with dinosaurs, rhyming off multisyllabic scientific names, theoretically far above their reading age.

There’s lots of good advice in the article about how educators can spark, harness and maintain interest, but this was the sentence that grabbed my attention.

In a world too full of information, interests usefully narrow our choices: they lead us to pay attention to this and not to that.

Makes sense. You scan through articles and linger over those that catch your eye. But what happens when you’re not especially interested in the first place, but still have to research a particular topic? What do you do when nothing is stimulating, when nothing catches your eye. If interest makes it easier to learn, surely that presupposes lack of interest makes it more difficult to learn.

Imagine looking through a load of books, or at search engine results, or perhaps you’re trying to gather information from a particular website. And nothing is jumping out at you. As an adult, you’d hopefully have the confidence to move onto something else, but what if you’re sitting in a class gazing at the materials your teacher or librarian has provided and there’s nothing, and I mean nothing, to captivate you.

What are the chances that you’re going to understand it, learn it, remember it? What are the chances that you’ll give up, start mucking about, not paying attention? What are the chances that your brain starts to associate being bored with the process of research, and not just the specific topics?

The article continues,

… one reason that growing knowledge leads to growing interest is that new information increases the likelihood of conflict – of coming across a fact or idea that doesn’t fit with what we know already. We feel motivated to resolve this conflict, and we do so by learning more … A virtuous cycle is thus initiated: more learning leads to more questions, which in turn leads to more learning.

And I agree, so long as you’re already interested enough in the first place, and not disheartened by the research process.

To me, this is precisely why professionally qualified school librarians are an absolute essential in schools. The pupils are entitled to benefit from the advice and support of a person who understands the research process from start to finish, can seek out appropriate resources that can spark those questions, and work across the curriculum identifying connections.

Above all a person to collaborate with the other educators in the school to provide a collection of material that will fascinate and intrigue, to teach pupils and staff how to seek out reliable information for themselves, how to use it appropriately, and how to create their own, to demonstrate technologies that can achieve their aims in ways they find appealing, and to grab opportunities to maintain that support and advice whether the school is open or not.

Throughout, the article recommends making sure that students

have sufficient background knowledge to stimulate interest and avoid confusion … to cultivate interests that provide us with lasting intellectual stimulation and fulfillment

And a professionally run library is a pretty good place to cultivate those intellectually stimulating interests, and provide the background knowledge, through fiction, non-fiction, websites and DVDs, weekly clubs and annual events, detailed discussions and daft blethering. It saddens me that more people don’t know that, but it’s also part of my job to make sure that more people do.

And incidentally, The Brilliant Report is well named. I thoroughly recommend signing up to the newsletter.

The original plan was to purchase a copy of RPG Maker for our creative writers participating in the And Now This! Club.

Unfortunately, all of our computer systems are being transferred onto Windows 7, so we’re delaying the purchase of new software 😦

In the meantime, we’ve been working on our tiny game, pulling together the three strands of the pupils’ original short stories which gave us a magical didgeridoo broken into pieces that were discovered when someone sang or whistled nearby (AH), a goose stolen by a witch, turned into rock, and hidden in a cave from its rightful owner (SS), and a church determined to destroy the world with a strange lizard which must be saved by the world’s most terrifying harpist and their constantly smiling sibling (HS).

This is quite controlled for us 😀

Well, at this week’s meeting I suggested that we try to draw out the world, including as many aspects of the different stories as we could, on the understanding that everything was up for grabs and could be changed, unless they argued vociferously and logically to keep it.

It took us a while to draw out a grid, but by the end of the hour’s meeting, we had the beginnings of a decent landscape.

We didn’t just plonk stuff down anywhere, but considered why something would be where it would be. To ensure that the world stayed wee, we created a valley enclosed by mountains. Caves were added at the secondary compass points, although one is actually a cave through the mountain allowing us to expand later if need be.

We needed a village, a river and a church, which caused a fair amount of er, discussion, before I eventually grabbed a pencil, closed my eyes and drew a wonky line across the paper, much to the amazement of one person – that’s exactly it! – and the horror of another. Our landscape is frozen, and the lake is thick ice except for one area which is always steaming water. Naturally the church went beside it, and the village was built on the edge of the frozen lake, with buildings on poles through the ice.

Jeffrey, the Forgetful Lizard? by J L Macfadyen

Throughout this discussion we had been laughing that the inhabitants should all be geese; it tied in with the goose turned to rock in the cave, and explained how the inhabitants had found their way into a valley surrounded by mountains. However, this didn’t explain where the strange lizard came in until I remembered my photo of the Argentine Tegu. A colleague had seen it briefly and thought it was a bird – not that weird since birds are descended from reptiles. The club dubbed him The Forgetful Lizard Who Forgot to Evolve. His name is now Jeffrey in honour of that ornithophobic colleague, and our world has its first folktale!

Finally, our map needed a symbol for a church, so we decided on three wavy lines, like steam rising, with an added bonus when we noticed that it could be drawn by a webbed foot 😆

The class are engrossed in writing tweets in the persona of Mary herself – although some have asked to add in replies from other people, like John Knox, Elizabeth I, Lord Darnley and the Earl of Bothwell. And because it’s tweeting, we’ve allowed less formal language and encouraged hashtags, lots and lots of hashtags.

Rather a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself.

Our Mary, Queen of Scots IDL classes work in rotation over three subjects: Art, Modern Languages and Social Subjects. Each class has an introductory lesson, four periods with each class, with a trip to Stirling Castle early in the term and the chance to pull it all together into a collage at the end of term.

We split Mary’s life into ten time periods, split the class into ten groups, and asked each pair to focus their research into just that one time period. I’d already pulled together a load of load of video clips to along with the books – of which there aren’t that many actually – and added them onto the school website along with the other links.

The result is that they learn a fair bit about one short period of Mary’s life, but since they want to share all the tweets with each other, they’re actually peer teaching the rest of her life too. And in order to make the tweets make sense, they have to mention a particular event, and add Mary’s reaction, all in 140 characters. The character limit allows the class to accomplish a lot in a short space of time.

A couple of my favourites:

Once most of the tweets are complete I explain how to make their work look like a real Twitter page with images and text wrapping but with more of a 16th century feel using their choice of fonts.

You know, I think too much sometimes. The topic on this occasion: what is the purpose of a School Library at lunchtime?

Obvious answer is of course, the same as the rest of the time: reading, learning, teaching, fun, homework, study, careers, events, or just talk to the librarian. However, mine is not a school where the pupils are always keen to work away at lunchtime, and there are plenty of other activities taking place in other departments so rather than sit in an empty library, I’ve introduced a variety of activities.

Photography

For the last few years, a colleague and I have run the Photography Club once a week. The pupils come along to the Library, eat their lunch, relax and get to know each other (and the staff), and then we’ll either take some pictures, analyse existing photographs, work on Photoshop or discuss entries for competitions. We’ve had 1st years to 6th years, some only there for the craic and companionship and some for genuine interest in photography.

Successful bids bought a handful of wee cameras to use in wanders through the local country park and for photography jobs to do in the school. We also took the group to Summerlee, an industrial museum in Coatbridge on the site of an old ironworks. They have a photography studio subsidised by the council to work with school groups where we headed for a session on lighting and portraits. A great opportunity for the group to work with some professional equipment (and professional photographers!)

This year we decided to do something slightly different. We still run the club at lunchtime, but this time my colleague suggested submitting the pupils for a qualification. We invited all previous members along for a discussion of the idea, but only serious photographers showed up, all of whom were enthusiastic about the idea and it’s been much . It’s been running well ever since.

Stuff’n’Things

Last year I ran a Stuff’n’Things Club which was basically a little bit of everything: games, puzzles, competitions, storytelling, reading, cool websites, crafts. It grew out of a Creative Writing Club which dissolved when nobody had time to write or wanted to share their writing, but the usual mix of enthusiasts and attention seekers didn’t really work. Stuff’n’Things worked well at keeping pupils’ attention, and it wasn’t a problem if some people didn’t show for a while. Meanwhile, discussions with the dedicated creative writers have led to another club (run after school) called And Now This! that I’ve written about elsewhere.

So …?

Well, libraries should be there for everybody, that goes without saying, so it is better to have a library that’s in greater use overall but off-limits to non-club members two days a week, or a generally open library that isn’t so busy? My inclination is to the former, but it doesn’t stop me wondering, especially after I’ve read something wonderful from another school librarian.

What I need to remember is that Every Library is Different and Every Librarian is Different, and to accept the unacceptable:

Highlight of an inspiring day for me. Cristina is aiming to create a model for an ideal school library in Scotland, by identifying the elements that would enable the library to meet a high professional standard.

The case studies involved three schools in the USA and two high schools in Scotland, and compared the same elements in each location:

school environment: culture, management and resources

professional associations: national and local branches

librarians: dispositions and strategic vision

Naturally, a lot of Cristina’s model focused on that from the US, and described a culture where managers view librarians as having an area of expertise within the education system, integral to the education of pupils; a curriculum supported by teachers and librarians collaborating on shared objectives; with clerical support that allows the librarian to work strategically with pupils and teaching staff, rather than be stuck at their desk (which brings us neatly back to the SLIC research from the morning).

Impact of School Libraries (SLIC, 2013)

Most importantly though, Cristina’s model reviewed the disposition of a school librarian, characterised as

one who persistently seeks, sees and seizes opportunities to work with teachers

as well as being welcoming to all students, keeping up with current developments in curriculum, technology, literature and best practice, and determined to promote and develop the library to support the goals of the school and pupil/staff requirements.

She also recommended a strong local peer support network working to share knowledge and solve problems, which led neatly on to the five minute shout-outs: presentations from school librarians in Grangemouth, Glasgow and Edinburgh, discussing initiatives they’d been a part of. This was an outstanding opportunity to be reminded that each school is different, and each librarian is responding to the needs of their school, with celebrations of local minority cultures, getting involved with local competitions, promotion of books in all shapes and sizes, and the Patron of Readng programme.

Both Cristina’s model and the SLIC impact model are reliant on support from management, which, of course, requires more advocacy from us to ensure such a level of support.

It’s also important to recognise that the majority of school librarians I know of who left their posts, did so for more money, or for a role with greater recognition, making such support absolutely essential.

Hopefully, some of the work discussed here at the Autumn Gathering will be valuable tools in the fight for librarians from all sectors.

a website featuring ‘Edinburgh’s history through Stories, Images and Historical Maps from Edinburgh Libraries‘, Our Town Stories,

a library app, Your Library, Learn, Escape, Enjoy which provide access to local libraries and allows the mobile to act as a library ticket.

eBooks, and regular promotion of them

tablets for their staff.

In addition, Edinburgh invested in the physical appearance of their libraries to facilitate the impact of the technological changes, all of which has led to measurable improvements in both the satisfaction and the number of visits of customers.

So what happens next? Liz faced the audience with a collection of characteristics of the new type of Library Leader required, and challenged us: is this you? If not, get out there, get reading, find a mentor, take risks! If it is: say you can do it, and make it happen!

space on the CILIPS website to promote impact of learning and teaching, and raise expectations of what a school librarian can do for a school

the RGU literature search on impact of school libraries

a snapshot audit of LRCMs in Scotland via a Freedom of Information request

This last point was especially interesting, providing the information that there are still nine central School Library Services in Scotland (including one established in 2012!); that the majority of school librarians are professionally qualified; that it is difficult to analyse remuneration because every authority is different; that budgets are generally holding up; and that two authorities did not reply at all and will be followed up. Very useful to have stark data from which to build your arguments.

Cleo Jones explained how Edinburgh librarians had advocated with impact statements, DVDs, support from colleagues, and lobbied to parent councils, school management and councillors. Despite a policy of retaining full-time qualified librarians in every school, their posts were again under threat, underlining the earlier point made by Barbara Band – YOU CAN’T STOP ADVOCATING – YOU’VE GOT TO KEEP TALKING.

In this instance, school librarians now have an additional tool in the RGU report on the impact of school librarians, complete with its funky graphic.

Impact of School Libraries (SLIC, 2013) Used with permission.

The challenges: could your school management explain to a third party what the librarian does? ; do parents know the role school librarians play in school? ; do we let people know what we do?

The last of my carefully collected CD-ROMs were binned at the summer. No computer in the school can play them. Video disk players, audio tapes, CD players – all used in my time as a school librarian, all gone.

And of course since the digital age means ‘everything’ is online, there’s no need for hard copy resources, therefore no need for libraries, the place that hoards such antiques (because of course, the technology having got this far will stop now, right?!?)

As Audrey Sutton pointed out right at the start of the Autumn Gathering, change in resources is nothing new: from Sumerian tablets to digital tablets, libraries are still here.

However, it was striking how often advocacy cropped up in this year’s Autumn Gathering; striking but not surprising, because libraries are undoubtedly under threat, usually from people who don’t know what we do, and probably don’t care.

advocacy is not just speaking up for ourselves, but getting others to speak up for us;

advocacy has to be an ongoing, sustained effort;

advocacy should be done collectively, within our own workplaces, and for ourselves

The need for advocacy is embedded in all the media reports of our demise: too many people do not know what it is that libraries do, or have an outdated or simplistic idea. The best folks to explain is us, and we’ve got to keep on explaining, over and over again.

Barbara quoted Steve Bowman of the University of Chichester:

“30% of our success is due to skills and experience but 70% is due to visibility”

Worth considering. But as Barbara also pointed out when you’re good at something, you make it look easy. And if it looks simple, then anyone can do it – right?

Um, naw. But Barbara provided some guidance:

small things can still make an impact

consider what you’re already doing in your own organisation: what’s the impact? what can you improve on?

make sure you’re advertising what you are doing

finally, don’t forget people’s opinions of you as a librarian will impact on how they view the entire profession.

The challenge: we need to make ourselves into a tribe, make ourselves visible, share with each other, share with our bosses, then share with everyone – what do we do, and what impact are we having? And who’s going to lose out without us?

National Poetry Day always seems to fall on an awkward day for us – Thursdays are always a nightmare at this time of year – so we’ve shifted it forward a week.

Last year‘s event worked quite well, and we ended up with a rather lovely collection of decorated stars complete with strange associations, making beautiful displays around the school.

This year, the theme is water, and originally we had all sorts of fabulous ideas for jars of floating poetry and watery events, but October sneaked up on us again, and again I was out of school. A quick meeting in a corridor later, we simplified the entire process: just get the pupils to write a line of poetry on the shape of a water drop, and then decorate it again as last year. Poems would be available via links on the LRC website or (if especially requested), in e-mail. Plus, I sent a message to all teaching staff suggesting that they might want to get involved if any of their classes were studying anything remotely water themed. Facts about canals and watery words (or les mots d’eau?) in French and Spanish were now to be included. We looked forward to more eye-catching displays.

Easy-peasy.

Well, of course it wasn’t. No problem adding links to suitable websites, except of course, not every poem is ‘suitable‘, say for 1st years, and I wasn’t expecting some of the options that popped up! (This is why you always check twice). Most importantly, picking a single line or two out of a poem to express a thought or a description isn’t especially easy. I know, I tried in advance. The Scottish Poetry Library examples were beautiful, but we didn’t want this to be a constant repeat of the same lines.

Then one of the English teachers told me she had got her class to brainstorm synonyms for water and consider words to go with them. Simple, easy, effective, guaranteed to mention water in some form.

And so, starting today, that’s what we’ve done, and it has been brilliant. In fact, we ran out of water drops, and I’ve had to order more photocopies. (Not sure what it says about me as a librarian that it took twenty minutes before I thought to bring over the water related books 😳 )

However, I reckon National Poetry Day is a perfect way to take the library outside. We have a beautiful country park filled with wonderful trees, buildings and downright weird stuff right beside us, and it’s just begging to be used for days like this. It’s going to take a whole pile of administration and organisation, but imagine the fun of poetry walks in the woods, gathering sensations as you go, maybe even borrowing the iPads for photos and notes as inspiration hits.

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By the way …

I have got into the habit of writing something but only publishing it privately to begin with. This encourages me to self-edit and make sure that what I've said makes sense.
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